Over the years......

we've seen talented players after a short high fall by the wayside, one of them in my opinion was Ryan Kankowski. There's probably a few more and perhaps the board can throw their names up for debate. I also feel that several of our best talent were burnt by poor coaching or no coaching.

Another killer of such players is the dreaded utility tag. Being shunted around from position to position without being allowed to settle and specialise. Here are a couple of players that burst onto the scene only to fade away. Ruan Pienaar, Brent Russell, Gaffie Du Toit, Patrick Lambie, Faf De Klerk (Although, it may be a little early to call him a flash in the pan), Pierre Spies (Even though it took the powers that be a hell of a long time to figure out he wasn't cutting it), Frans Steyn, Derrick Hougard....just off the top of my head.  

 It begs the question as to how many of the amount that were burnt would have been huge players had they started their careers in for example NZ? When Spies burst onto the scene I thought he was going to be the next best thing, then he suffered a health setback and JW was forced to leave him out of the 2007 WC squad but then when he came back he was never the same again.

Frans Steyn could and should have been the best player in the world, 20 year old Frans could do everything - he was quick, strong, a good passer, a massive boot and he had no fear, the quickest springbok to 50 caps ever, fast forward 10 years and it's really quite sad how it all ended up. 

Spies was a physical monster, albeit one that seemed a bit scared of contact